Stephen Miller is many things—Trump’s senior adviser, a far-right conservative, an anti-immigrationist and known White supremacist. What he is not is the best person to write a speech on race relations in the United States. And yet, on Tuesday, Twitter blew up after reports started swirling that Trump’s chief speechwriter would be penning a national address on just that.
Since Miller entered the White House in January of 2017, politicians and concerned Americans alike have vocally expressed their trepidation about the former Breitbert editor being so close to the President of the United States. Miller authored the White House policy of separating children from their parents at American borders. He also worked with other administration officials to crack down on sanctuary cities. Miller’s public views on White nationalism put him at the center of a Southern Poverty Law Center exposé. And getting him removed from his post has become a legitimate passion for Senator Kamala Harris.
The White House has yet to confirm a race relations speech or Miller’s involvement if one is planned, but when ESSENCE reached out to the director of specialty media to confirm reports, we were told that more info would be forthcoming. Even so, just the idea of Miller authoring such a speech had Twitter running amuck.
“The second biggest White Supremecist [sic] in the administration is writing a speech on race relations with People of Color?” author and media commentator Malcolm Nance tweeted. “Surely he will plagiarize 1930s Nuremberg’s greatest hits. The numbers 14 & 88 will feature promenently [sic],” he continued, referencing the Nazi war criminals trials in Germany and the symbolic numbers used by White supremacists.
Trump critic and outspoken Republican Ana Navarro responded to the news saying, “Why…Was David Duke not available?” drawing a direct line between Miller’s views and that of the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Another Twitter user chimed in, “You don’t take race relations seriously if you get a white nationalist to prepare a speech about it.” And Valerie Jarrett, the former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, simply wrote, “The less said the better…”
Though details of a race relations speech have not been confirmed, The Dallas Morning News reports that Trump does plan to visit Dallas for a fundraising dinner on Thursday and discuss “holistic revitalization and recovery.” Ahead of that event, he expects to sit down with faith leaders, law enforcement officials and small-business owners to discuss “solutions to historic economic, health and justice disparities in American communities.”